Swim Meet Information and Terms
Time Standards
Where do these time standards come from? The San Diego Imperial LSC uses mostly the USA Swimming National Motivational Time Standards. These are based on the national average of USA Swimming athletes and are graded on a B to AAAA scale by age group with B standards being the easiest and AAAA standards being the hardest. B times indicate that a swimmer is in the top 45% of all swimmers nationally in their age group. Each Standard above that represents a smaller subset of those swimmers down to AAAA which is the top .01%. The Age Groups are 10/Under, 11/12, 13/14, 15/16, and 17/18. On the other hand, our Age Group Championship time standards are set locally here in San Diego and are crafted to select approximately the 24 fastest swimmers in each event based upon the average results in the event over the past 3 – 5 years. These time standards can change annually to reflect changes in the size and performance of various age groups. Specific meets may have different or faster time standards based on historical attendance and performance. Generally those meets are attended by teams outside of the LSC. Examples of this are WAGs, Senior Classic, and Sectionals.
